The German armed forces received a staggering fivefold increase in annual applications for conscientious objection discharges last year, Belga News Agency has reported.
Germany's Bundeswehr received 951 applications for conscientious objection discharges in 2022 — a 373% rise from 2021, when it received 201 applications, according to a Government spokesperson. All of the conscientious objection applications were made by soldiers currently serving in the Bundeswehr, as Germany abolished military conscription in 2011.
"Soldiers who during this explosive period come to the conclusion that they do not want to shoot and kill or injure other people should be offered an easy way out of the army," the German Peace Society (Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft) said in a statement.
According to the German Peace Society, the enormous increase in conscientious objectors is a direct result of soldiers' desire not to be sent to fight in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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Although Germany is not an active participant in the Ukraine war, it is the fourth largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine, after the US, the UK, and Poland. Last year, German arms exports totalled €8.35 billion, of which more than a quarter (€2.24 billion) was sent to Ukraine, thereby also making it the fifth largest arms exporter in the world, after the US, Russia, France and China.
The significant weapons sales follow German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's famous announcement of a 'Zeitenwende,' or turning point, three days after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. Scholz promised €100 billion in additional funding to modernise and replenish Germany's armed forces and to alter the country's previously restrained defence policy, which it had diligently pursued ever since its defeat in World War Two.
